Representing Melancholy Love: “Aiqing Xiaoshuo” in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Media Culture

During the decade following the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912, there emerged an ephemeral wave of “aiqing xiaoshuo” (fiction of pathos, or mournful romance) in Shanghai-based popular media, which centered on the tragic dimension of human emotions in romantic relations. Literary scholars often regarded this genre of fiction scornfully, accusing it at worst of peddling banal, sentimental tales for profit, or, more equitably, of critiquing traditional family and marriage institutions. This chapter, however, proposes an understanding of the production and reception of aiqing xiaoshuo as a manifestation of the aesthetic of melancholy, experienced through a process of collective mourning. Discussed in this chapter are the themes of melancholy love and widow fidelity as they appear in some of the most popular sentimental stories by Xu Zhenya, Wu Shuangre, and Chen Diexian in the 1910s. Special attention is paid to the affective power of these tragic romances, the circulation of melancholy, and readers’ engagement with these popular texts. The author argues that this aesthetic of melancholy became a collective experience in which the processes of writing, reading, and mourning could be inextricably interwoven. Fiction of pathos thus represented a new literary interest in the intimate sphere of emotional life, and signaled the advent of a new author-reader dynamic. Consequently, both writers and readers engaged actively in a public demonstration of the authenticity of their inner emotions, collaboratively constructing a sentimental community of love in modern print media.